Evaluation of death cases with skull fractures from the aspect of forensic medicine

In this study, 520 cases with a skull fracture were evaluated by retrospectively examining the reports, photographs and death examination notes out of 3000 incidents that were autopsied during a 6-year period, between 01 May 2005 and 30 April 2011, at the Antalya Morgue Unit of Council of Forensic Medicine. Age, gender, cause of death, manner of death, cause of trauma, and toxicological test results of cases were considered. The cases consisted of 84,6% male and 15,4% female. The most frequent age group was 21-30. The main cause of death was accidents, followed by homicides and then suicides for both males and females. The most common accident types were traffic accidents with a rate of 41,8% and falls with 41,3%. The main cause of traumas was gunshot wound (%44,8) followed by falls (%25,4) and traffic accidents (%15,2). The most common type of fracture in all the cases was linear fractures and the most frequent fractured bone was temporal bone. Ethyl alcohol was detected 40,5% of deaths from traffic accidents. A high rate of fracture at the basis of cranium was observed in the cases who has periorbital ecchymosis and otorrhagia at examination.